1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a video camera apparatus with a preset operation and a video camera monitor system including the same.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A video camera monitor system including a video camera with a pan and tilt mechanism and a display monitor with an operation terminal for controlling the video camera nd the pan and tilt mechanism is known. International Publication Number WO95/35624 discloses such a video camera monitor system. Japanese patent application provisional publication No. 1-129687 discloses that a coordinate position of the video camera is written in a memory as a new target position in response to a write command.
On the other hand, Japanese patent application provisional publication No. 9-79168 (U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/041,751, European Patent application provisional publication EP 0 865 212 A2) filed by the same applicant discloses that a television camera combines a long exposure video signal with a short exposure video signal to provide the combined video signal. Moreover, Japanese patent application provisional publication No. 9-83422 (U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/042,628, European Patent application provisional publication EP 0 866 608 A2), filed by the same applicant discloses that a video camera compensates the gradation characteristic of the video signal in accordance with the detected histogram.
The aim of the present invention is to provide a superior video camera apparatus with a preset operation and a superior video camera monitor system including the same.
According to the present invention, a video camera apparatus is provided which includes: a video camera unit for taking an image around it, generating a video signal from the image, processing and outputting the video signal; a mechanical control unit for controlling the video camera unit in accordance with position data; an electrical control unit for controlling the camera unit to process the video signal in accordance with video signal control data; a preset data memory (a non-volatile memory) responsive to a preset data storing command for storing preset data including time data, the position data, and the video control data; a time signal generation circuit for generating a time signal; and a preset operation portion responsive to a preset operation command for monitoring the time signal with reference to the time data and reading the position data and the video control data from the preset data memory when the time data corresponds to the present time signal, and supplying the position data to the mechanical control unit and the video control data to the electrical control circuit to control the video camera unit.
In the video camera apparatus, the position data includes pan position data and tilt position data. The mechanical control unit includes a panning mechanism for panning the camera unit in accordance with the pan position data and a tilting mechanism for tilting the camera unit in accordance with the tilt position data.
In the video camera apparatus, the position data includes zoom position data, focus position data, and diaphragm position data, and the camera unit includes a zoom lens unit, a focusing unit, and a diaphragm unit. The mechanical control unit includes a zoom control circuit for controlling the zoom lens unit in accordance with the zoom position data; a focus control circuit for controlling the focussing unit in accordance with the focus position data; and a diaphragm control circuit for controlling the diaphragm unit in accordance with the diaphragm position data.
In the video camera apparatus, the time data includes data for distinguishing between day and night. In this case, the time data may include present time data and month data. Moreover, the time data may include preset time data four-seasons data.
In the video camera apparatus, the video control data includes gradation compensation data, automatic-gain control data, white balance data, electronic sensitivity control data, character superimpose data, shutter speed data, motion detection data, and synchronizing data. The electrical control unit includes: a gradation compensation circuit for compensating a gradation characteristic in accordance with the gradation compensation data; an automatic-gain control circuit for control a gain of the video data in accordance with the automatic-gain control data or the electronic sensitivity control data; a white balance control circuit for controlling a white balance of the video data in accordance with the white balance data; an electronic sensitivity control circuit for controlling a sensitivity of the video camera unit in accordance with the electronic sensitivity control data; a character superimposing circuit for superimposing character data on the image in the video signal in accordance with the video character superimpose data; a shutter speed control circuit for controlling a shutter speed of the video camera unit in accordance with the shutter speed data; a motion detection circuit for detecting a motion in the video signal in response to the motion detection data; and a synchronizing circuit for providing a synchronous operation to the video signal in accordance with the synchronizing data. In this case, the gradation compensation data includes gamma compensation characteristic data, short and long exposure video signal combining characteristic data, short exposure video signal shutter speed data, and white balance data. The video camera unit includes a video processing circuit which includes: a gamma compensation circuit for controlling a gamma of the video signal in accordance with the gamma compensation characteristic data; a short and long exposure video signal combining circuit for generating short exposure video data and long exposure video data at substantially the same time, combining the short exposure video data and the long exposure video data to generate the video signal in accordance with the short and long exposure video signal combining characteristic data, the short exposure video signal shutter speed data, and the white balance data.
According to this invention there is a provided a video camera monitor system including: a video camera unit for taking an image around it, generating a video signal from the image, processing and outputting the video signal; a mechanical control circuit for controlling the video camera unit to take the image in accordance with position data and a manual operation command; an electrical control circuit for controlling the camera unit to process the video signal in accordance with video signal control data and the manual operation command; a data receiving circuit for receiving a manual operation command, a preset data storing command, and a preset operation command; a manual operation circuit for operating the mechanical control unit and the electrical control unit in response to the manual operation; a data obtaining portion for detecting the position data from the mechanical control unit and the video signal control data from the electrical control unit in response to the preset storing command; a time signal generation circuit for generating a present time signal; a preset data memory (a non-volatile memory) responsive to the preset data storing command for storing the position data, the video signal control data from the data obtaining circuit and the present time signal as preset time data; a preset operation portion responsive to a preset operation command for monitoring the present time signal with reference to the preset time data and reading and supplying the position data from the preset data memory to the mechanical control unit and the video control data from the preset data memory to the video processing circuit to control the video camera unit when the time data corresponds to the present time signal; and a display monitor terminal including: a display monitor for displaying the image in accordance with the video signal; and a terminal unit responsive to an operator for generating and transmitting the manual operation command, the preset data storing command, and the preset data operation command.